City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Crimson Archer - Waking From A Dream Of Heroism

Crimson_Archer_EU

By Crimson_Archer_EU,
Posted on: 2008-01-16 18:17 in Multi-Media Fan Creations

 

Posted

((This piece takes place after an evening where we tried to play through the "Stop Hro'Dtohz and save the world" mission from The Dark Watcher, and after Crimson Archer faceplanted so many times I knew I couldn't just ignore it! So, here's what can come of taking too many hits as a non-powered hero...))

Infirmary, Vanguard Compound
10:22 am Friday, 28th December 2007

The smell of disinfectant was strong in the Vanguard Infirmary, but it was just one of the many distractions which kept Jay awake as he lay on the gurney, flimsy screens shielding him from the rest of the open plan room. The muted chatter of nurses, the regular buzz of the medical teleporters and the cries of wounded heroes, back from the war and being treated by the infirmary staff before being sent out into the field again, all combined into a symphony which perfectly complimented the ongoing battle against the Rikti; or so Jay thought.

He stared at the ceiling, smiling to himself and listening to the sounds around him. The pain in his chest from his broken ribs and collapsed lung had long since been faded into a pressure he could cope with under the care of the doctors and their drugs. The air pocket in his chest had been drained allowing his lung to re-inflate, and he'd been assured that he would be released back into a civilian hospital today.

Jay chuckled to himself. A civilian hospital. That's what the Vanguard doctor had said, like this was a military facility. As far as Jay knew Vangaurd weren't the army; no, they were beyond that. Answerable to no one but themselves, or so it seemed, but wasn't that what was needed to deal with the Rikti? Extreme measures and the people willing to execute them. Maybe that was why Jay was considering the offer he'd been given by Levantera, to join Vanguard and use his skills as a hunter in the way he'd used them before he became a hero.

Hero. He shook his head, unsure of what they meant for him now anyway. Not for the first time in the past 24 hours, his mind went back to the raid which had put him in here in the first place. He'd been following Britanic, Amber Banshee and Gauisus Somnium, providing support where he could as they'd entered the sewers and found their way underneath the Rikti Mothership. Jay had never been inside a Rikti ship before, and he had found it... unsettling. People try and describe something as Alien, but until you have seen something which really is... well, the description means nothing.

Jay had already taken knocks earlier in that mission, and he'd known that at least two of his ribs had been cracked, but he made light of it, especially when trying to keep up with folks who have real power. He shook his head as he remembered the way the light bursts from his flash-bang arrows, reflected off the polished walls of the huge hall. He'd lept over the heads of the Rikti, trying to keep behind them while delivering his payload of arrows. Disruption heads, Glue Arrows, Acid clouds, everything he could do to try and slow them down or soften them up for the others to deal with. He doubted now that it had really made any difference, especially with what had happened later.

He'd known from the briefing that the Rikti were trying to open a new portal to their homeworld, and it was down to Britanic and the rest to destroy the mechanism behind it. The small team had even managed to destroy one of the energy pylons before the Nemesis troops had shown up. That was when Jay had gotten over confident, or frustrated at his own ineffectiveness, and he'd tried to take out one of the other pylons on his own. All he remembered was being struck from all sides by Rikti weapony and Rikti fists, which quickly gave way to the black numbness of unconciousness.

Jay cursed his own stupidity now, but still he smiled. He'd risen out of his stupour a few times before they'd all been teleported back to the Vanguard base, and what he'd seen was an inspiration; of sorts. Amber Banshee and Gauisus had both fallen to the sheer number of forces that filled the alien hall; Rikti and Nemesis soldiers all fighting together to prevent the portal being destroyed, part of yet another insane World domination plan by Lord Nemesis, and in the middle of it all stood Britanic. They swarmed around him like hornets, and he swatted them aside as such. His clothes were torn in the melee, but that miracle fabric of his repaired every split and rip, just as his mutant powers did the same for his own injuries. He looked like a God, glowing in that way he does, seeming to swim through the hoards of his enemies, swinging his fists like great hammers and his gaze never leaving the face of the Rikti General or the Nemesis powered armour which guarded the soon to be activated dimensional portal. In that moment, Britanic was the most handsome thing Jay had ever seen, even as the archer had lapsed once again into unconciousness.

Waking up in the infirmary and finding out that the mission had been a success had been a bitter sweet experience for Jay. Gauisus had been badly wounded, and Jay would have to wait to find out what had happened to him. Amber's own wounds had been largely superficial thankfully, and behind her had stood Britanic. Beautiful, powerful Britanic. Jay had wanted to say something to him, but the man had seemed so serious, his face dark lined and his eyes glowing less brightly than he'd ever seen them. Jay had thought they'd seemed almost hollow, but he'd faded again before the thought was fully formed, and when he awoke they had all gone.

Now was left the empty time to think. 24 hours to drain his chest and patch him up, they'd told him, and then he could be transfered. 24 hours without visitors, and with nothing to occupy Jay's time beyond his mistakes and the things he'd left undone since leaving The Militia. For once it wasn't maudlin thoughts, but more like a plan, or at least the start of one. Jay had watched a real hero at work; a real Super hero, and now he knew he couldn't fight in that league, not and remain human. He was a man trying to be more than a man could be, and for a while had come close, but yesterday he'd seen the ultimate prize and had been found wanting.

And still Jay smiled. He thought about his bow and arrows. His steadfast refusal to accept technological assistance, even lying about the condition of his own injuries so that he wouldn't have to recieve a cybernetic eye. He'd been offered technological improvements and gadgets in the past, and beyond his trick arrows he's always turned them down. "Ah gotta rely on myself", Jay had always said, and this was where it had gotten him. He'd seen the newspaper days before, with Pin Pointer on the front cover, and he'd seen that even she'd started using gadgets to raise her game and help her do the job she wanted to do. Jay shook his head. Was he just stubborn, as his Father had said before? Unwilling to bend to a new path, even if it was the better way? Jay inhaled deeply and felt the sharp pain in his chest, even through the drug induced dullness. He'd fought so hard to get where he was now, and it had not been enough. Not by a long chalk.

He reached out and picked the metal tray off the portable storage unit next to his guerney, knocking it loudly against the metal bars of the bed. A nurse poked her head around the screens, an annoyed look on her face.

"Yes, Mr Reynolds?"

Jay smiled, that disarming redneck smile which had gotten him what he wanted in the past.

"Ah'm ready ta go now, miss, if y'all can fetch me a doctor", he said to the nurse, keeping his smile firmly in place despite the pain as he swung his legs off the guerney to sit on its edge. "There's things on th'outside ah gotta see to."

Formerly @Crimson Archer, now @CA
The Militia - Protecting Paragon City through roleplaying since June 2006!